1. Field
Example embodiments relate to an image forming apparatus, an image forming method, and a control program therefor.
2. Description of the Related Art
There is an image forming apparatus known for forming an image on a recording medium according to image information by discharging ink droplets while a control unit moves a carriage in a main scanning direction and the recording medium in a sub-scanning direction, respectively.
One problem with such an image forming apparatus is that when a recording medium, or paper is jammed, e.g., when a conveyance failure occurs, further movement of the carriage causes an excessive load on the carriage and surrounding components.
There is an image forming apparatus that guides a user to remove the jammed paper by informing the user of an occurrence of the conveyance failure (jam) and how to remove the jammed paper.
In this case, however, removal of the jammed paper depends on user determination or user operation. The user may forcibly move the carriage to remove the jammed paper, pull out the jammed paper without moving the carriage, or contact mechanism components such as an encoder, thereby causing secondary damage, for example, contamination of the encoder or damage to the mechanism.
To prevent such secondary damage, it may be desirable to release a jam without any manual operation by the user.
In this regard, there is a technique to determine the type of jam. When the jam is determined to be a specific type, a driver installed on a computer may automatically send a command to release the jam so that conveyance of the recording medium is automatically stopped and the jammed paper is automatically removed.
However, a jam may occur for various reasons. In addition, automatic discharge of the recording medium may not be possible depending on the status of the recording medium at a time of the jam and the user may need to manually remove the jammed paper. Example embodiments are directed to an image forming apparatus capable of securely releasing a jam.